FOR a certain generation of women, Mr Darcy means only one thing: the dashing Colin Firth emerging from a lake in a wet shirt.
Which makes Welsh actor Matthew Rhys rather brave for taking on the role in a new BBC adaptation.
He will play the Pride and Prejudice hero in Death Comes to Pemberley, a novel by crime writer PD James, which tells the story of Jane Austen's Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennett six years after they married.
Rhys, who has previously starred in Brothers and Sisters and The Mystery of Edwin Drood, has already admitted he faces a huge challenge to follow Firth's 1995 portrayal of Mr Darcy.
The 38-year-old said: "Exciting as it is, one of the challenges of a part such as Darcy are the comparisons that will be drawn to those who have institutionalised him in the past.
"The beauty of Pemberley is that it is an entirely new and different Darcy six years on. And also, I don't have to appear from a lake in a white shirt and breeches."
Anna Maxwell Martin, who starred in The Bletchley Circle, will play Lizzie.
The novel has been adapted into three one-hour programmes which will be shown over Christmas.
Rhys will also follow in the footsteps of Spooks actor Matthew Macfadyen, who played Mr Darcy to Keira Knightley's Lizzie in the 2005 film version of Pride and Prejudice.
Filming for Death Comes to Pemberley will begin in Yorkshire in June.
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